The Philipic

More NYC stuff

Ξ September 30th, 2009 | → 0 Comments | ∇ Interesting |

More stuff bubbled to memory:

• Intended to get to Natural History Museum around 6.  Assumed it was going to be open because their website listed activities until 8pm, but it wasn’t.  Completely closed up.
• Salvaged the situation by going to Chinatown, which had been tentatively scheduled for the next day.
• Mostly followed the advice of Kat, who suggested we walk up and down Mott Street.
• Lots of weird fruits all over the place.
• Ended up eating at a very popular Chinese takeout/sitdown place.
• It was very popular with the locals.
• It’s menu didn’t resemble Americanized Chinese too much.
• Prices were cheap, and portions were reasonable.  That meant no wasted food and no leftovers.
• I ordered beef and bitter melon.
• I’d read about bitter melon in Steven Levy’s Hacker, and the anecdote stuck in my head:
  

  Chinese food was a system, too, and the hacker curiosity was applied to that system as assiduously as to a new LISP compiler. Samson had been an aficionado from his first experience on a TMRC outing to Joy Pong’s on Central Square, and by the early sixties he had actually learned enough Chinese characters to read menus and order obscure dishes. Gosper took to the cuisine with even greater vigor; he would prowl Chinatown looking for restaurants open after midnight, and one night he found a tiny little cellar place own by a small family. It was fairly dull food, but he noticed some Chinese people eating fantastic-looking dishes. So he figured he’d take Samson back there.They went back loaded with Chinese dictionaries, and demanded a Chinese menu. The chef, a Mr. Wong, reluctantly complied, and Gosper, Samson, and the others pored over the menu as if it were an instruction set for a new machine. Samson supplied the translations, which were positively revelatory. What was called “Beef with Tomato” on the English menu had a literal meaning of Barbarian Eggplant Cowpork. “Wonton” had a Chinese equivalent of Cloud Gulp. There were unbelievable things to discover in this system! So after deciding the most interesting things to order (“Hibiscus Wing? Better order that, find out what that’s about”), they called over Mr. Wong, and he jabbered frantically in Chinese disapproval of their selections. It turned out he was reluctant to serve them the food Chinese-style, thinking that Americans couldn’t take it. Mr. Wong had mistaken them for typically timid Americans but these were explorers! They had been inside the machine, and lived to tell the tale (they would tell it in assembly language). Mr. Wong gave in. Out came the best Chinese meal that any of the hackers had eaten to date.

  So expert were the TMRC people at hacking Chinese food that they could eventually go the restauranteursone better. On a hacker excursion one April Fools’ Day, Gosper had a craving for a little-known dish called Bitter Melon. It was a wart-dotted form of green pepper, with an intense quinine taste that evoked nausea in all but those who’d painfully acquired the taste. For reasons best known to himself, Gosper decided to have it with sweet-and-sour sauce, and he wrote down the order in Chinese. The owner’s daughter came out giggling. “I’m afraid you made a mistake my father says that this says ‘Sweet-and-Sour Bitter Melon.’ ” Gosper took this as a challenge. Besides, he was offended that the daughter couldn’t even read Chinese that went against the logic of an efficient Chinese Restaurant System, a logic Gosper had come to respect. So, even though he knew his order was a preposterous request, he acted indignant, telling the daughter, “Of course it says Sweet-and-Sour Bitter Melon we Americans always order Sweet-and-Sour Bitter Melon the first of April.” Finally, the owner himself came out. “You can’t eat!” he shouted. “No taste’ No taste!” The hackers stuck to the request, and the owner slunk back to the kitchen.

  Sweet-and-Sour Bitter Melon turned out to be every bit as hideous as the owner promised. The sauce at that place was wickedly potent, so much so that if you inhaled while you put some in your mouth you’d choke. Combined with the ordinarily vile bitter melon, it created a chemical that seemed to squeak on your teeth, and no amount of tea or Coca-Cola could dilute that taste. To almost any other group of people, the experience would have been a nightmare. But to the hackers it was all part of the system. It made no human sense, but had its logic. It was The Right Thing; therefore every year on April Fools’ Day they returned to the restaurant and insisted that their appetizer be Sweet-and-Sour Bitter Melon.

• The bitter melon, by itself, tasted kinda bad.  It was, well, bitter.  It oddly worked alright if you are it with a piece of beef though.
• I don’t think I’ll ever have it again.  But it was really neat to try it once.  It could have been downright awful and I think the experience would have been worth it.
• Kat found her Bubble Tea.  It was a bit alien, but interesting.  If I go again, I think I’ll have to get a full cup for myself.
• There were a number of candy shops as well, all full of exotic treats, a number of which I’m not sure were that appetizing.  Dried fish candy?
• But, in retrospect, I wish I had gotten something.  You just don’t come across places like that in upstate NY.
• Cosmopolitan moment.  As we were headed back to the subway through Chinatown, surrounded by Chinese shops and workers, we were passed by a group of orthodox Jews walking in the opposite direction.  Three very different cultures sharing the same space at the same time, even if it was only in passing.

 

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